


Long Night Til Dawn

by daphnerunning



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Blood, Flogging, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Painplay, Pretty much consensual though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:17:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5506250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for everything up to Chapter 280!</p>
<p>The night before Hakuryuu is to pronounce sentences, Ren Koumei gets a visit from the man who brought down the Western Army of Kou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Night Til Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the Magi Kink Meme! http://labyrinthofkink.dreamwidth.org/ (Me, bellowing: I'M ALWAYS A SLUT FOR MASOCHIST KOUMEI)

Six days after the Battle of Kanan Plains, his sentence will be pronounced, along with that of his brothers.

The night before that, Ren Koumei gets a visitor in his cell.

“You look better than I’d expected. Then again, anyone else I’ve ever stabbed like that has died.”

Koumei blinks slowly, eyes sweeping to the side to catch sight of the intruder. He’s only seen the man a time or two, seen him scried in a crystal more often--Yamato Takeruhiko, the King of Kina, looking cocky and rather dramatic in his clothing even without the armor strapped to his body. Koumei’s eyes lid again, and he pillows his hands behind his head on the wooden bench, feeling the ropes binding him dig into his skin. It hurts his wrists, but he’s beyond minding that, at this point. “Maybe the Emperor will let you try again tomorrow, Your Majesty. I’m sure he’s grateful to you for your assistance. He might give you the head of his cousin.”

Takeruhiko watches him through the bars over his door. There can’t be all that much to see, Koumei thinks. Hakuryuu has tossed him into a cell with a stone floor, a wooden bench, and a convenient hole in one corner. There’s a tray for food on the ground with a puddle of gruel untouched, left ignored for the last several hours. Hakuryuu hadn’t even allowed him a single scroll or novel, not that that’s surprising. 

“You think I’m angry because I wanted you dead?”

“Why else did you come?”

“Call it a favor among royalty.”

Koumei sniffs, staring at the familiar ceiling. “Try a few cells down. Apparently what I have is pretender’s blood.”

He looks back in a moment when he hears the jingle of keys, and the guard on the door (who has never so much as blinked at Koumei’s pleading, ordering, or attempts at politeness) moves over to unlock the cell door, admitting Takeruhiko inside. “Um. I didn’t say you could come in. Guard, can’t I at least kick him out?”

The guard ignores him. Koumei has the sinking intuition, based on the man’s age, that the man likely had at least one son present at the Battle of Kanan Fields. _On whose side? Do you hate me for commanding him poorly, or commanding those who slaughtered him?_ It doesn’t matter, he supposes. Hate is hate, and death is death, and that man will never care what was in his heart. Nor, Koumei supposes, can he blame him for feeling that way.

As much as he wants to ask Takeruhiko to leave, there’s something burning at the back of his mind, and he finally relents, sitting up on the wooden bench. The loose beige robe he’d been given slips off his shoulders, but with his hands bound, it’s useless to try and stop it. It doesn’t matter anyway. “If there’s something you want that I still have to give, I’ll give it to you for information,” he offers bluntly. 

Takeruhiko’s mouth twitches. “Still trying to seek out an advantage? You think you can get out of this?” He looms taller than Koumei remembered, when he’s the only one standing. 

Koumei shrugs one shoulder. “I wanted to know if you had any information about my brothers. If there’s something you want for that, fine.”

“I want to see it.”

Koumei blinks heavy eyelids for a long moment before the words process. Oh. Takeruhiko is a weirdo, then. That’s fine. He can work with weird. Hell, it’s not so far from his own brand of weird, and if it gets him what he wants, so much the better. He shifts, letting the robe slip off his shoulders completely, baring him to the waist and wrists. He doesn’t look down--he’s seen his own body enough and isn’t terribly impressed with how much muscle he’s lost in the last couple of years--but knows what Takeruhiko will see. The scar is almost circular, depressed in a thick line the size of a clenched fist, as if someone had punched entirely through his abdomen, barely missing his spine. It’s no longer red and angry from infection, not after some wizard friend of Hakuryuu’s had stitched him back together, but it doesn’t exactly feel _good_ , either. 

Takeruhiko extends a hand, but Koumei holds up his own bound ones in front of the wound. “Pay first,” he orders. “What do you know about my brothers? Is my--did the Emperor say what his intentions are?”

A flicker of annoyance streaks across Takeruhiko’s face, but he banishes it quickly, holding his hand still if not retracting it. “He hasn’t said anything yet...but the Seven Seas Alliance was invited to an execution tomorrow. Apparently he hasn’t decided if it’s to be just Kouen, or all three of you.”

_But it isn’t going to be none of you_ , are the unspoken words, and any last hope Koumei had had of possibly getting out of this hell someday are shattered. For an absurd moment, his biggest concern is that history is going to record them as _awful_ people, the three brothers who tried to overthrow their young cousin.

Takeruhiko moves, but not to his scar the way Koumei had been expecting. He moves to lean in close, whispering into his ear, “You still think he’ll change his mind, don’t you? You think he’ll come to his senses and remember that you used to what, read him stories? That precious Kouen used to carve him wooden horses, or your little pink-haired sisters used to braid his hair?”

“Kouha is male,” Koumei corrects automatically, but his voice is flat, and his skin prickles with the cold in Takeruhiko’s words. 

Takeruhiko does move to stroke his scar now, thumb dragging over newly-healed puckering skin, and Koumei sucks in a breath, trying not to react when pain dances through his spine. “You people use women in your battles. It’s despicable.”

“They use us, more often th-than not.” Damn his own reactions, anyway.

Takeruhiko pauses, watching his face intently as he tries to turn away, grabbing his chin and holding his face still as he touches the scar tissue again, harder until Koumei gasps. “Thought so. You were blushing when I stabbed you, too.” 

Nausea flares in Koumei’s stomach at the memory, blazing hot in his mind among all the memories of past injuries he carries. Nothing had felt _quite_ like being stabbed with that awful metal vessel, lancing across the sky to carve its way through his body with about as much resistance as a hot blade meeting soft butter--which is sort of what he feels like, most days. Even the threat of execution in the morning doesn’t stop his skin from prickling with heat when Takeruhiko keeps toying with his body in such a way, and he belatedly remembers that most people would _respond_ to a taunt like that. “Thought you were going to kill my little brother,” he pants out. “It was relief that it was me instead.”

“Sure it was. What did it feel like?” Takeruhiko’s voice is intent, hushed, and Koumei suddenly realizes that they’re close enough that he can feel the warmth in the other man’s breath with every exhaled puff of air. They’re also close enough that he can feel Takeruhiko pressing into his hip.

Koumei’s eyes lid, and he finally lets himself lean into the touch. Takeruhiko hisses when he presses forward, letting that hand grind into his healing wound, lips parting so he can suck in urgent little breaths. “I’ve...n-never felt anything like it, ah, before.”

“You want to.”

“Told you. Ask my dear cousin if you want to, he might let you.” Koumei shifts, rubbing his thigh against Takeruhiko’s growing hardness, watching his face change. “But I think...that’s not quite right, is it?” His lips thin into a slow smile, curling up at one corner. “I think you don’t mind killing. But that’s not the part you _like_.”

“And _I_ think you have more experience with men like me than a prince of the blood should.” That doesn’t stop Takeruhiko’s eyes from gleaming as if he’s discovered something shining, and Koumei’s breath comes faster. 

“Well,” he admits, looking down at his bound hands, “it isn’t a vice I thought I’d get to enjoy again.” _Since I’m to be dead in the morning, apparently._ Kouen had chastised him strongly the last time he’d found out about his little...games, but at this point, what’s the harm? The worst that could happen is that Takeruhiko will tell someone and it will be really awkward for the bastard child he might have running around back in Rakusho, courtesy of some woman his brother had dumped in his lap. He’s already a branded traitor--might as well be remembered as a pervert too.

Takeruhiko’s fingers splay over the scar, and the other moves to Koumei’s bound wrists. “How stupid are you?” he asks, and Koumei knows what he means instantly.

“Not that stupid.” He’d have to be a complete imbecile to think he could win a hand-to-hand fight against Yamato Takeruhiko without metal vessels (or even with them), whether his hands were bound or free. Even then, what? The guards wouldn’t let him out anyway, no matter his hostage, if the hostage had been stupid enough to wander in and unbind him. If anything, he’d probably be used as a reason to say that mercy is overrated, and condemn his friends, family, subordinates who had previously been spared to an unnecessary death. 

Takeruhiko seems to agree, and loosens the rope chafing his wrists, releasing it to reveal how red and raw they’ve become. Koumei isn’t the least surprised when he grabs them, pinning them up over his head, forcing him down to the bench. Calloused fingers digging into the tender flesh make him gasp, and Takeruhiko breathes faster. “How many men have played with you like this, Ren Koumei?”

“Ah...” It’s a struggle to remember, when Takeruhiko is being kind enough to shove him down and hold him there, and all Koumei wants to do is melt into his touch. “A few? None recently.”

He isn’t entirely prepared when Takeruhiko flips him over, shoving him down onto his belly against the wood. He yanks at the robe, letting out an annoyed snarl when it gets caught on his hands, and Koumei twists around to help as quickly as possible. Takeruhiko has a switch that makes him go from smiling to berserk, that much is clear, and he doesn’t want to trigger it on accident.

“That’s good,” Takeruhiko breathes, jerking the robe down, tossing it aside to crumple on the floor. He rakes a hand down Koumei’s back, sucking in a breath as his fingers brush over pocks, puckers, and ridges of old scars clustered between his shoulders, down to the curve of his ass. “Just a few, you said?”

“A few men. More than a few times.” It isn’t easy to find someone who understands how to give him what he wants without the fear of permanent damage, or fear that someone will talk and shame the royal family. The thought that he doesn’t have to worry about either of those things anymore--he’s a confirmed traitor who will die in the morning, what does it matter?--makes his back arch under Takeruhiko’s touch. There’s something very freeing about no longer having anything left to lose. “But I have a feeling they’re going to pale in comparison to you.”

“Spread your legs.”

It isn’t easy to obey, stuffed into a small bench as he is, but Koumei lets his thighs part, breath coming fast against the smooth wood under his face. Takeruhiko is on him in an instant, hard body covering his from above, the weight keeping him facedown even if he’d been inclined to move. “One question,” Takeruhiko murmurs, lifting the mass of hair off of his neck and moving it to one side. “Are they washing you in here?”

_If I say yes, will you touch me?_ “Yes,” Koumei says, because it’s the truth, and because he has a feeling he knows what he’ll get if he does.

Takeruhiko’s teeth sink into the soft skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, sharper than he’d expected, enough that a pleasant fizzling spark shoots through his nervous system, making him gasp. Takeruhiko isn’t a gentle biter, and Koumei feels the flesh around his teeth bruising with the impact as a hand slides up between his thighs. 

“Do you let them do this to you too, those men who striped you?”

Koumei sucks in a breath through his teeth at the intimate touch. “Not usually what they...want,” he grunts, then yelps when Takeruhiko’s hand moves up to his balls, squeezing them suddenly. 

“You’ve caught me unaware,” Takeruhiko rumbles in his ear, the deep tone of his voice casually confident, aware of his own power and mildly amused by it. “If your cousin spares your life, maybe I’ll take you to Kina. I’d love to have you under my hand for a week or two.” He licks over the place he’d bitten, making the skin sting again. “Imagine what I could do with you if I had all the tools and space at my disposal...”

Koumei lurches up, eyes lidding as Takeruhiko plays with him, the very real fear of being actually damaged making his cock swell against the bench. “Help me imagine.”

Takeruhiko releases his sac, and Koumei lets out a shuddering little hiccup at the sudden lack of pressure, his entire body tingling down to the toes when Takeruhiko stands, grabbing for the discarded rope that had bound his wrists. “This is crude,” he complains, and with deft, practiced hands, ties a few knots in the rope’s end before giving it a practiced swing, hearing it crack against one wall. “It will do in a pinch, I suppose, but imagine...I have a selection back home that would do whatever I needed.”

Koumei doesn’t even have time to speculate before the first stripe lands across his back, and he shifts to muffle the sound with his forearm, crying out against the skin. The knots in the long fibers bite into his shoulders, wielded by a man with hard layered muscles he’d felt against his skin, and Koumei turns his head to see the guard still standing stoically outside of his cell, not moving an inch.

The thought comes to him that if he changed his mind and Takeruhiko ignored him, there’s little to nothing he could do. For the first time during his little games, he’s truly, undeniably at someone’s complete mercy, or lack thereof.

It probably says way too much about him that he almost spills on the bench at that thought alone, just as the rope bites into his back again, just between his shoulderblades. The third strike is harder, steadily building until the fifth splits the skin. Takeruhiko pauses at that one, drawing close to run a finger through the trail of blood running down his side under his arm, and Koumei’s body warms to the touch. It’s on the verge of singing now, properly warmed up and calibrated, until his mind slips into that fuzzy, not-quite-present state where all his responsibilities and guilts and regrets calmly take a vacation and leave pleasure behind.

“Wish I had a more delicate one,” Takeruhiko sighs, straightening up before the next lash falls, and Koumei gasps against his arm. “I’d turn your whole back red before I started to bleed you. I’d love to make it _last_.” His aim changes, and one stripe lands diagonally across the back of Koumei’s upper thigh, carving a welt into the sensitive skin, making him involuntarily yank his legs together.

“Oh...Prince Koumei, that’s a very bad reaction.” 

Koumei almost protests, says that he doesn’t really go in for this sort of thing, that it’s far more about pain itself than it is about _control_ , but Takeruhiko is hardly listening, and Koumei doesn’t care that much anyway. It’s hard to care about anything other than Takeruhiko grabbing his hair and dragging him off the bench to kneel on the floor, holding it steady as he draws back his arm and backhands him so hard his teeth draw blood from his cheek, filling his mouth with the bright taste of iron. He licks his lips, and when he looks up at Takeruhiko, isn’t surprised to see the man drop one hand to the fastenings of his trousers. He reaches up, moving his hand away, murmuring, “Let me,” before yanking them open.

Cock has a particular smell. Sure, all men smell a little different, but most clean men (and Takeruhiko is very clean) are quite similar, layers of tang and musk and a bitter earthiness that steals into Koumei’s nose, makes his lips part, still tacky with a few drops of blood. Kneeling, his calf rubs against the welt Takeruhiko had left on his upper thigh, and he can’t stop himself from shifting to make the burn more intense. 

Takeruhiko’s hand fists in his hair again, tangled in the matted strands, yanking it painfully back. He shifts forward, until the blunt, dripping head of his cock rubs against Koumei’s lower lip, leaving sticky residue behind to mix with the drying blood. “A prince of Kou lets men do this to him too, does he?”

“I--yes.” Not always, not _often_ , just often enough to remind him how much he misses it all the other times.

Takeruhiko slides forward a fraction more, enough to let Koumei’s lips cover the head, and the slick fluid drips over his tongue, salty as the sea the man loves so much. “You obviously have a lot of practice,” he murmurs, breath hitching when Koumei’s tongue slides over the head. “Ah, but your mouth is busy. I’ll ask him.”

Koumei’s eyes widen, but Takeruhiko’s hand is strong in his hair, yanking him down as he thrusts in, looking over his shoulder at the guard still stationed outside. “Hey, Guard. You’re from Kou. Has your second Prince always been this loose?”

Koumei gags, face burning with sudden humiliation as the guard turns around, looking dispassionately over his red, tear-streaked face, mouth stretched wide over a king’s cock, naked on his knees. 

“There were rumors,” the guard says slowly, and god, what if that’s true? How many of the men he’d passed every day in the halls of Rakusho had _known_? Had his servants, who had cleaned and bandaged him a dozen times, spilled their sworn secrets? Had one of his playmates recognized him after all? “But I didn’t think he’d be so obvious about it.”

Koumei brings his hands up to push Takeruhiko away, but the King of Kina holds him fast, shoving him down until he gags, then yanking him off to backhand him again. The blow makes his teeth rattle, and he sees Takeruhiko’s arm fly back again, only to hold there. “No...people would talk about your cousin’s poor treatment if you showed up to your judgment tomorrow looking like raw meat, wouldn’t they?”

“That wouldn’t bother me terribly,” Koumei admits, embarrassingly conscious of the guard’s eyes on him when he answers. “If he wants to ruin his own reputation by letting his new friends have his way with his prisoners and family--”

Takeruhiko’s foot comes down, booted sole pressing against his cock, and Koumei’s breath leaves his lungs in a rapid, startled exhale. He isn’t pressing hard, not yet, and the firm surface shoving into where he’s achingly hard feels so good he nearly comes right away. His mouth parts, and he lets out a groan, choking when Takeruhiko takes that opportunity to shove his cock back into his mouth, stepping down a little harder with every thrust. With every shift in his weight, a bright spark of pain shoots through Koumei to pool like liquid heat in his abdomen, cock swollen and too-hard, aching with every beat of his pulse. 

Spots flash in his eyes when Takeruhiko shoves his cock all the way down his throat, until Koumei’s nose is yanked against coarse hairs at the base, until he gags and chokes and his vision starts to dim, until he vaguely feels the hot splash of liquid at the back of his throat, and Takeruhiko spills into his belly, only then letting him up for air. Koumei coughs, retching a little onto the floor, trembling when Takeruhiko grinds his foot down, the pressure on his cock so painful he thinks it might--

“Go on,” Takeruhiko orders, and it’s all Koumei needs, letting out a shuddering cry and falling to his hands and knees as he comes hard under a king’s boot. 

The hand in his hair turns suddenly gentle, and Takeruhiko kneels in front of him, stroking his hair, wiping one of the tears from his face with the soft touch of his thumb. “If we had the time and leisure,” he murmurs, eyes sparkling with some hidden conviction, “I’d string you up from the ceiling. I’d let all of my loyal men have a turn with you, and stripe you after each one for enjoying it.”

Koumei’s pulse thunders in his ears as he sucks in ragged breaths, throat raw, back stinging, cock slowly going soft and spent. He looks up with bleary eyes, then out the tiny window to the blackness of night.

Then his hand shoots out and grabs Takeruhiko by the belt, yanking him close. “It’s not dawn yet.”


End file.
